Hewitt semis hurdle

Sunday, 27th May 2007 1:13pm

I have been following Lleyton Hewitt's progress at the Hypo Group International tournament in Vienna, Austria and
once again for the second consecutive tournament he reached the semi-finals but again failed to reach the final.

This time he lost his semi-final match to Gael Monfils who went on to lose to the Juan Monaco in the final. This time he was playing in a tournament that didn't have many of
the big names and that gave Hewitt a chance to reach the final and win it possibly and so you would think but Monfils
also had good tournament as he also dispatched another big gun in Andy Roddick along the way.

Even though Hewitt failed to reach the final, I think he has done his French Open preparations no harm and I think he will be able to reach at least the second week. A grand slam always has some unknown players coming in and causing some shocks but I think that if Hewitt plays the way he has done for the past fortnight he is capable of causing upsets of his own.

Hewitt's first match will be against Max Mirnyi whilst defending champion Rafael Nadal will play Argentinian Juan Martin Del Potro and Roger Federer will fight it out against American Michael Russell.

While its true that Llyeton has been playing well of late, I still contend that his type of play is his major downfall. He should continue to vary his game like he sometimes does when facing lesser known opponents, attacking more. His type of play requires him to expend too much energy ... he should take the risks. They are just too many matches on tour these days and one should find a way to conserve energy...Federer took advantage of a tiring Nadal just recently. reply

Mbareboy, don't you think that he can vary his game against 'lesser known opponents' because they allow him to do so whereas the higher ranked and established opponents will not allow him and therefore to be safe and win he sticks to his true and trusted way? But maybe when he is able to vary his game like Federer does sometimes against anybody, then he will become an even better player. reply